Tips For Managing Crisis - Episode 52

In this episode of The Married And Naked Podcast, we are diving in and exploring how to navigate crises that arise in your life.   Life is filled with unexpected challenges, and these external crises can place significant strain on a marriage. 

Joel and Tammy share the story of their own current personal crisis that they are facing and the tools that they are learning along the way that are helping them thru.  They are providing  guidance on finding balance, setting boundaries, and supporting each other's amidst external chaos

They dole out valuable insights and practical tools to help couples weather these storms while strengthening their bond.

Even if you aren't in a crisis now, you want to listen to this episode and tuck these tools away for the day it shows up.  These are vital strategies to protect your marriage when the $@!# hits the fan!

Transcript

Tips for Managing Crisis 

Tammy: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Married to Naked Podcast. I'm Tammy, founder of the blog, married to Naked, certified sexuality coach and speaker. And I'm 

Joel: Joel TV host, motivational speaker in the Guinea pig to the lessons you're about to 

Tammy: learn. We're high school sweethearts, married over two decades, and we are on a mission to help you create the marriage you desire and deserve.

Let's get naked. 

Joel: Welcome in everybody to the Married to Naked podcast. How are you doing 

Tammy: my love. I'm doing okay. How are you doing? 

Joel: I don't know. Am I do, are you fully irritated with me right now or 

Tammy: just kind of. I'm definitely irritated with you right now. 

Joel: So I, I've got these nuts that I started to chew on right before we hit the record button.

And what did you tell me? Uh, like five seconds ago. 

Tammy: I'm incredibly irritated with you. 

Joel: Not that part. I know you said that, you said that in the mic, but Oh, stop chewing now. Stop chewing and get away from the microphone now. 

Tammy: And then you were slurping your drink. I mean, can we get any more annoying with the sounds?

Geez, I'm 

Joel: sure I could, but I won't do that to you. [00:01:00] I must say this be before we go on. Unfortunately, the listener can't actually see you and you just got a haircut and you are adorable. That's so sweet. Adorable. You're 

Tammy: just saying that cuz I said you were irritating and trying to bring it back in and make me.

Feel bad, 

Joel: by the way. There's a lesson in everyone out there. You get on the bad side. Try to get back on the good side. But I mean it though. That's the difference. I actually mean it. You did just get a haircut two days ago. Shout out to Laura. Haha. Or, or I dunno what that was. That was terrible. Was supposed to be a woohoo and that was like a honk hok.

Um, anyways, Laura's been doing all of our hair for my gosh. 20 years, 15 years. It's crazy. 20 years. 20 years. Mm-hmm. But shout out to her. So she made it look very beautiful 

Tammy: on you. That's very sweet of you. Yes. I To get a lot cut off. Yes. And it feels very sassy and fun, so I am enjoying it quite a bit.

Maybe 

Joel: you'll put a picture on the gram so people can see on the gram on the, I know I sound so like [00:02:00] witted, don't I? I 

Tammy: don't think so. Oh my gosh. What are you doing? Is this 

Joel: what the kids say? Did you have a rock star just now? I am. I'm You're still in the middle of, it's still in the middle of it. Oh, I called that one.

Oh my goodness. Okay. All but you, in all seriousness, you look beautiful. It looks awesome. You got, thank you, sweetie. You're glowing today. Your smile is glowing, so you're 

Tammy: very sweet. 

Joel: Thank you. Oh, well, you're welcome. Especially in, I haven't seen much of that in the last, uh, two weeks, 

Tammy: so, yeah. Right. So that's gonna be the topic of our conversation today is Joel and I have been in the middle of some crisis and not necessarily crisis in our marriage, but crisis outside of our marriage that affects our life in many, many ways.

And we've been deep in that, and I thought that's what we would talk about today. And talk about some of the ways in which we're managing that crisis, because all marriages are gonna go all relationships, all people are gonna be tackling [00:03:00] crisis at various times in their life. And having some good tools in place can be very beneficial.

And we're having to learn as we go, some of these ideas and tools so that we can manage this together. So I thought we would share some of those tools with you that we've come across in the last little bit, and recognize also that we have a lot of learning and a lot of work to do. And when you're in the middle of crisis, it feels impossible to think to use tools because you're just kind of in survival mode.

So I just wanted to share where we're at, what we're dealing with in hopes that it can help other people deal with crisis when it hits. Their lives as well. 

Joel: Yeah. And before we get into, um, sharing this stuff, I, I want to just give you guys an opportunity to help other people hear these messages. So I, we thank you guys so much for all your support and we want to reward you for that.

We did this last time where we actually asked you guys to do [00:04:00] a review, and for that, um, we rewarded a couple people, the date night questions, the ones that you've created. So I randomly select out a couple individuals to win some date night questions. So I just want to encourage you guys to do that 

again, 

Tammy: right?

These are questions that you can take with you on your next date night. They're like conversation starters to keep the conversation really fun and on each other and learning about each other. And they're in a principal form, so I will send you the link to that. If you could just email me at married in the letter in naked Gmail and uh, let us know that you left a review and we will send you the date night questions for free.

Ooh. It's a fun little bonus there. So thank you for supporting that. Now where do we even begin, Joel? 

Joel: Well, uh, let's begin with how everything flipped upside down for us. Okay. So we were in San Diego for spring break. This is our typical annual spring break with a [00:05:00] family. Goes down there. We were enjoying the beach.

We're having a wonderful time. And we're on our last evening of our spring break with our kids and. We got a call from a family member saying that my mom had fallen in the house and she was in the er. 

Tammy: We realized after talking to. Family members that it is a serious situation. She is disabled to begin with, 

Joel: and we just determined that, you know what?

It's not worth staying in San Diego. We need to be near her. So we all packed up and we headed home. Mm-hmm. So got home about midnight and when we got home, we had this. Realization that my mom, it wasn't just about the fall. She has pneumonia on top of the actual fall, which did injure her leg, and we don't know the severity of it.

Yeah. So let me fast forward now to today. Here we are, a couple weeks later, my mom transitioned from the hospital to a care facility to help her with pneumonia, to [00:06:00] help her rehabilitate herself so she can have some strength. To help her knee that she had fallen on and kind of move a little bit in the way she can move.

Because again, like you said, she is disabled, so she can't 

Tammy: function normally. Right. She has been using your dad for the ability to get up and down off a chair or to be able to get up, you know, and down off the toilet. She has limited mobility, so she uses your dad and because she had no strength, she, that's why she fell.

And suddenly we're dealing with a. A safety issue of your dad helping and your mom falling. And then we also have another issue on top of that. 

Joel: Yeah, and the other issue's a little bit, it's, I think it's the one that is really, we say changed our life or, or has flipped us upside down and has put us in crisis mode, is that my dad has memory issues to where now here we are, we have this fall and we have this realization that.

My dad [00:07:00] cannot remember so many details to the He 

Tammy: can't remember any details. Yeah, 

Joel: he can remember everything about the past. Remember everything about our past. Remember everything about what happened 10 years, 20 or 30 years ago. But he can't create new memories, which is a hard, bizarre, unique situation to have us in it.

You and I and my sister are the closest to him, and we have two other siblings that live outside the state, and so now we're realizing that, oh my goodness, what just happened means that things have to shift in our life. My, my mom, when she gets out of this care facility, which she's in right now to, for this rehabilitation and my dad come home together, they have to basically have full-time care.

Tammy: Your mom and dad usually function well on their own, and we see them sometimes. Now we're seeing when your mom's not in the house, what your dad actually is. Dealing with, [00:08:00] and we're realizing the extreme severity of it, we're suddenly thrown into this major crisis of needing to care for your parents. And while your mom is in the hospital, she's in the care facility, your dad needs care from us because he can't get where he needs to be without our help because he gets lost.

He can't. Remember what he needs at the grocery store. He can't remember anything that your mom is telling him she needs. He's going for a walk and getting lost, like it's severe and suddenly, uh, we're seeing the severity of it and we're thrown into a major crisis in our life of how to manage and care.

For them and how to take care of their finances so they get what they need and how, who to find to help them. And we're just really in it. And the stress has been so intense, not [00:09:00] just taking care of your mom and making sure she's getting all the care she needs, because honestly, those care facilities are they, they just suck.

I've never been in one that I thought was great. And we've had to deal with a few in our life and they suck. And you have to really advocate for the people that are in there and make sure they're getting what they need. Not only caring for her, but caring for your dad has suddenly become part of our daily, daily routine.

Yeah. And it has thrown our life for a complete loop, and it has been incredibly stressful. 

Joel: Yeah. I, you and I. Have known that this is going to come to us at 

Tammy: some point. Yes. But your mom has been there in order to help your dad, so we just didn't really realize the severity. Yeah. So the stress has been immense and it, it hit very, very hard, very, very fast, and took us from relaxing on the beach, enjoying the [00:10:00] view to an absolute tornado storm.

The worst of the worst. Yeah. Literally in moments. 

Joel: Very little sleep, constant stress, constant worry, constantly 

Tammy: Not having our own 

Joel: schedule, not our own schedule. Shuttling my dad back and forth and everywhere and making sure he's safe and, you know, and making sure mom's getting the therapy and the, the attention she needs in these facilities and this facility she's at.

And 

Tammy: it's, and trying to figure out care for them when they get home. Yeah. When she gets home. 

Joel: Yeah. So the, we're only in step B right now. Yeah. And, and the next step will happen, you know, we'll see next week or the week after when she comes home, and then going from there. So it has been a, it's, it's, it's insane that this, this 

Tammy: is insane.

It's been incredibly difficult and devastating. Yeah. It's to be the tr to say that truthfully. Yeah. It's been devastating. And I know many people are dealing with aging [00:11:00] parents as if you're our age. That's just, uh, part of the deal and I've dealt with the loss of my own dad. My mom has been through many health issues herself, who is now 80.

Uh, so I know this is just a part of life, but it is incredibly difficult, I think, at any stage, but certainly when it's thrown on you and you don't anticipate it happening, we thought we had a lot more time before we were going to be faced with what we're, what we've been faced with the last two weeks.

Joel: Yeah, I mean, to, to give a perspective, my, my parents are still in their sixties and we're in our forties. We always figured at some point my mom was going to need, certainly need care because of her disability, but, um, didn't think it was going to be this soon, and for 

Tammy: both of them. So it's, it's devastating as I know many of you could relate to.

So we've been in it. Deeply, and I just wanted to share that experience with you and some of the feelings we've been having [00:12:00] and some of the ways we've been managing our day-to-day to help us get 

Joel: through. Yeah. You know, when you brought up this topic, Tammy, to say, Hey, let, let's talk about this. It's, it's, it's so hard when we talk about stuff like this cuz I, I'm, I feel like I'm remembering just, it was just one year ago while we were dealing with your moms.

Yeah. You know, heart issue. Yeah. Um, which was a past episode that we, we delve into about all we are doing with, but we're talking about marriage here. These strong forces outside of our marriage truly do have an effect in our marriage. Mm-hmm. And in our day-to-day that, you know, that you and I exist or try to exist in.

So it really is important because the one thing I can say before you're gonna say whatever you're gonna say, the one thing I can say is, You are my rock. You've been my rock, and you,

you have made, if there's anything these [00:13:00] two weeks have, have, um, have, uh, allowed me to leaned back on. And that is that, that you and I are so great and you are. So wonderful in a crisis. You are so wonderful in handling me, who's not as wonderful in a crisis. Um, you, you're just y you have this superpower that is absolutely remarkable and I, I'm so grateful for that.

I'm so, so grateful for that. And, Everything that you've helped me manage in the last, uh, couple weeks and will help me manage in the future. And I'm just, I'm so grateful for that. I'm, I'm, and so I know this is, it's been so hard on us, but it's also been very, um, uh, very strengthening for us too because I, I do [00:14:00] feel so strong about my, my, um, Partnership with you in this and, and my love for you and my respect and my admiration for your, you, you just, your, your ability to help move us through this and the way we should be moved through it anyway.

I don't, I know I'm rambling, but I just, I'm so grateful to be in this with you. I really am. 

Tammy: That's very sweet of you to say, baby. I appreciate that very much and I'm very sorry for all that you're going through. I know we are going through it, but it's your parents and it's devastating to have to face that with people that you love and to recognize that somebody you love is losing their memory is certainly something I never thought we would ever have to face, and [00:15:00] it's very scary and I'm just very sorry furrow.

You having to face that There's just so much wrapped up in what we're going through. So many feelings, so much fear wrapped up in what, what we're going through. But I do wanna say that one of the things, and I, I did a post on Instagram about this, is that you and I have done a lot of work, a lot, a lot of work.

I know this doesn't happen overnight where we're at a lot of work over the years and I think that that is, It's vital to do the work and not to wait until part of my French, but shit hits the fan because if you're not strong when it hits the fan, you're going down, most likely. Some. Some cases, it'll make you stronger if you can find a way to bond together through it.

But when you've got little cracks in your marriage all over the place that you've just [00:16:00] ignored, When stuff hits the fan, those cracks are going to expand and become bigger and bigger and it can take a marriage down. So I am very grateful that we've done the work that we've done to help prepare us to see each other as a team, to really stand strong, shoulder to shoulder as we face what we're facing and not standing against each other.

In trying to cope with what we're coping with and trying to keep our marriage from breaking apart. So I'm very grateful that we've done the work and I really encourage everybody do the work. Recognize the little tiny cracks. Do not ignore them because they will show up when you least expect it. And when you're most stressed and unable to take care of it, do the work when it's good, cuz it's not gonna be good all the time.

You know you're gonna be faced with incredible challenges. So I am proud of that for us, and that [00:17:00] we've been able to weather this as a team. When 

Joel: you get married, you're, you're basically married into a family for most people. Yeah. Most people, you're marrying into a family, which is a bond that you know, only a married couple can understand.

Now, you, you have in-laws and, and in-laws as sisters and brothers and your whole family, and I know it's not the exact same for everybody, but for us it is. Mm-hmm. And so I love your family. You love my family. Mm-hmm. And with that comes the good and of course the challenging 

Tammy: and the responsibility to take care of them and to help you cope with whatever it is that we need to cope with.

Yeah. So I did wanna share some of the things that we've fumbled around to find our way to over the last. Two weeks or so to help cope because the first few days of dealing with this were an absolute disaster. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, what we quickly realized is we [00:18:00] gotta kind of reign something in and gain a little bit of control of something in order for us to.

Be able to cope and manage this without losing our minds. 

Joel: I, I don't normally give the list, but, uh, the one that I had to say was, I'm gonna say mine first. Yeah. Because I don't normally add to the list, but that's great. I did have one on this one, and that is acceptance. You know, we, this is a, this goes back a tried and true when it comes to relationships, marriage and, and crisis as well, because I was not, Wanting or willing to accept this happening in the beginning.

Mm-hmm. And I was pushing, I, you know, I kept saying like, it's not supposed to happen now. This is not the time. This is five years, seven years, 10 years from now, not now. I had such a hard time be, you know, it's a very self-centered thing to say. I, I get that. I'm very aware of that. But I wasn't wanting to accept it.

I wasn't willing to 

Tammy: accept it because it, cuz it changes your life if you do. 

Joel: I wasn't willing to accept [00:19:00] what the memory issues my dad was having. I, I just didn't want to accept it. I just, no, no, no. Everything's fine. He's fine. He'll, he'll be ge you know, I just, again cuz it was changing everything about our life and the fact that you kept saying like, she can't go home without care.

Ever. This is like an life altering thing. And I kept saying, oh, no, no, it, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. And then to have the physical therapist and the care facility and the person who runs the care facility say, yeah, there's gonna be care that's gonna be needed forever. Like that whole, oh my gosh, Tammy was right.

And it took me about a day after that and to really sit in and really to sit back and say, oh my gosh, I, and I just, it just started to sink in, like, I need to accept all this cuz I'm resisting it. I'm saying no, I'm fighting it. And then it was this past weekend where I was able to really relax into it.

Maybe it was the sleep I finally got. Mm-hmm. You know what I [00:20:00] mean? Yeah. A little bit of, we got on a schedule with my dad, and my sister really kicked in the help and everything. So maybe it was that, but it was like, okay. Huh. And then when you're sharing me with what your ideas were, I'm like, oh yeah, I got one.

I, I finally accepted. Yeah. And life has looked a little bit different when, when that finally happened 

Tammy: for me. Yeah, I think acceptance is such an important thing to think about and it's, it's a basic Buddhist practice. If you are in a lack of acceptance, you are in resistance. And resistance causes suffering.

Hmm. And if you cannot step into acceptance of whatever it is, you will suffer. And it, it will be the source of suffering. When you're able to accept, then you're now able to look at things like, okay, this is the situation. What's the next step? I need to let go. I need to be actually present where we are right now, rather than sitting in resistance.[00:21:00] 

Now I can actually begin to do the work of. Taking care of the actual situation that we're in. So I, and I think acceptance is probably one of the hardest things that we'll ever do. We, we work really hard to accept each other. Yeah. To accept our situations in life. It is way easier said than done, and remarkable that you were able to do that on a short, in such a short time span, but, Wow, it was such an important shift.

Joel: Well, I didn't do it all for about a week. 

Tammy: I know, but I mean, people sit in denial and resistance sometimes for decades. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah. And it just doesn't serve, and it causes immense suffering. So I'm really proud of you for that, and I know that that was a really hard thing to step into, but I'm glad that you did.

So that we can move forward in, in really helping them the best way that we know how. The other thing that we have found to be really helpful is to remember that you and I [00:22:00] cannot really be in a breakdown mode at the same time. Yes. We are both allowed to lose our crap. Yeah. To cry. To be angry, to be devastated.

But if we're both in that place at the same time, we really struggle to get the things done that need to get done. Which right now there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done, not only in our own personal life, but for your family. But when we are, when I'm standing strong, it allows you to feel safe to break.

And when you're standing strong, I feel safe to break and we keep going back and forth. With this. Yes. It's, it's quite a ping 

Joel: pong 

Tammy: match going on right now. Yeah. But it is nice that I can recognize, oh, he seems to be like doing okay. I'm, I'm falling apart right now and he's gonna catch me and vice versa.

But it is really difficult if you're both in that same place at the same time. And I know this is probably impossible to probably [00:23:00] navigate very well, but it is something to think about if you are able to stand strong in certain moments when your partner needs to. Have that care and understanding and have that break in that moment, then, then stand strong for them so that they can in turn stand strong for you.

The other thing I think that we realized last week was we have to set some boundaries around this being a part of our life, this stress that we're dealing with. Because it is literally 24 7, like you said, we're not sleeping. You know, I'm waking up before, long before I'm supposed to, and my mind won't shut off.

I'm in this worry mode. You're not sleeping. We're talking about it every second. Yeah, for sure. And realizing, okay, we've got to put some kind of boundary on this so that we have a break from this [00:24:00] stress and we can recoup and recover a little bit. And stay connected ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

So I did recommend last week, like we need to set like a time limit. Okay. Like after six o'clock or whatever, just like we do with work, we're gonna put that off the table for the night. Yeah. And 

Joel: o obviously if we're not actually dealing with my parents that evening, like we're not with them or we're doing something like that, that's a little bit different if we are, but you're right.

Sure. When we're not. Right. And we've been in it all day. Yes. In the day before. You said that the other day and I'm like, oh my gosh, you're so right. 

Tammy: Because even, even in the moments when your sister is taking care of them and we, we are supposed to be getting a break, we're still talking about it. Yes.

We're still worried about it. We're still stressed and that is just not sustainable. 

Joel: No, it's not. And you said that, and it was that night when I felt it was the first night where I was like, oh wow. You're right. Let it go for a little bit. Yeah, let it go for It's gonna be there. It's gonna be there at the moment.

Exactly. We wake up tomorrow. So [00:25:00] Yeah. And it was, that was, that was very refreshing. 

Tammy: Yeah. And the other thing I want to just remind everybody is not to be afraid to ask for help when you're in a crisis. If you're in a crisis, in your relationship, if it's something outside of your relationship, if you're in a health crisis, don't hesitate to reach out for help, cuz my guess is, Even if you're not sure about it, there's probably many people around you who are willing to step up and and help, and I see it time and time again on next door.

Strangers that aren't even next door neighbors or anything, they step up to help when people reach out asking for help. We can't do this all on our own. We need help. You and I wouldn't be able to do what we're doing if we didn't have your sister's help. If we, I'm now asking our daughter for help. I, we've had to ask my sister for help.

It's the neighbors of my parents for help. Yes, exactly. So [00:26:00] we have to be able to put egos aside and realize we can't do this on our own, nor do we want to do this on our own. It's too much. Yeah. We need help and we need to reach out to anybody and everybody who's willing to help us out and take advantage of it.

Because we would do the same. We would absolutely do the same. And it's something that I've learned in, we have a family member who's dealing with cancer, and I remember in the beginning when we would ask her, you know, what can we do to help? Can we bring you meals? Can we, what can we do? And she would say, no, we're good.

We got it. And then as time went on and the chemo got more difficult on her body, she realized, you know what? I can't do this on my own. I have to ask for help. Yes. Would you please bring meals? And our answer? Of course. Yeah, of course we will. A small little thing that can help your family. Happy to do that.

So just know that there's people in your circle that [00:27:00] can help. Don't hesitate to reach out. It will help you. It will help you serve better. It'll give you a little respite, whatever it is you need in order to handle the crisis that you have at hand. So I, I think the goal here was just to share where we're at and to let everybody know that we're all in it in our own way.

Or if you're not in it right now, it's, it's gonna be there. Yeah. There's going to be challenges ahead, do the work and taking care of your relationship. Now when things are good, so that you can weather the things that are coming, and think about the little tips that we're learning as we go through this crisis, like acceptance, setting some good boundaries, asking for help.

And taking turns and supporting each other through the breakdowns that are inevitably going to arise in these crisis. And we're gonna get through it, babe? Yes, we are. Yes. We're gonna get through it. [00:28:00] Your parents are lucky to have you there. I was lucky to have you. They're lucky to have us as a team behind them that's going to take care of them and make sure that they have everything that they need and we're gonna take care of each other.

Mm-hmm. And we're gonna support each other through all of our breakdowns, and we're gonna ask for help, and we're gonna set our boundaries and everything's gonna be okay. It'll be hard, but it's gonna be okay. Thank 

Joel: you so much, 

Tammy: sweetie. I love you. I love you too. All right guys, we'll talk to you next time on The Married and Naked Podcast.

Bye everybody.